Heather, The Totality

The explosive debut novel - about family, power and privilege - from the creator of the award-winning Mad Men

The Breakstone family arrange themselves around their daughter Heather, and the world seems to follow: beautiful, compassionate, entrancing, she is the greatest blessing in their lives of Manhattan luxury. But as Heather grows - and her empathy sharpens to a point, and her radiance attracts more and more dark interest - their perfect existence starts to fracture. Meanwhile a very different life, one raised in poverty and in violence, is beginning its own malign orbit around Heather.

Matthew Weiner - the creator of Mad Men - has crafted an extraordinary first novel of incredible pull and menace. Heather, The Totality demonstrates perfectly his forensic eye for the human qualities that hold modern society together, and pull it apart.

“Heather, The Totality is superb. It gripped me at once. There was no question of turning away at any point. Weiner conveys the sense that beyond the brilliantly chosen details there was a wealth of similarly truthful social and psychological perception unstated. Then there was the ice-cold mercilessness, of a kind that reminded me (oddly, I suppose, but there it was) of Evelyn Waugh. This novel is something special”Philip Pullman

“Holds you in a way novels seldom do … It should be consumed at one sitting”financial Times

“This short novel of upper-crust anomie and class-divide obsession is a scorcher! It’s the classic noir construction: the short walk off the long ledge and the plummet to an indifferent Hell. Matthew Weiner demonically delivers the goods! Read this book in one gasping breath”James Ellroy

Matthew Weiner is the creator of Mad Men, and worked as executive producer, writer and director on the show, which is widely considered one of the greatest television series of all time. He has received nine Emmys for his work on Mad Men and The Sopranos. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, architect Linda Brettler, and their four sons.

“This novel captivates, despite the grimness of its preoccupations. Weiner has a knack for writing sentences that grab and grip, and he knows a lot about pacing and structure. Although it has none of Mad Men’ssurface glamour, Heather, the Totality offers its readers a not dissimilar pleasure: that of an addictive, even thrilling, nihilism.”

Heather, the Totality: the debut novel from Matthew Weiner, creator of Mad Men. Out 7 November, but you can pre-order it now. And we’d encourage you to. So would Philip Pullman (“Superb… this novel is something special”), Maggie O’Farrell (“Chilling and poised, I loved it”), James Ellroy (“A scorcher… Read this in one gasping breath”) and Michael Chabon (“A tour de force of control, tone and razor-slash insight… I could not put it down”).